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Hundreds of people in Surrey and more than 40 cities around the world lit candles Friday evening to remember bullying victim Amanda Todd and to take a quiet stand against the kind of torment that led her to take her own life.

Earlier this week, a member of the Calgary Police Service visited my home to do a security assessment. The evaluation was strongly recommended to me by officers within the behavioural sciences unit of the CPS after I received a written threat from a man with a long criminal record.

As police grapple with the growing problem of cyberbullying, they are “overwhelmed” by the quantity and complexity of computer-related crime, says the head of the Alberta Association of Chiefs of Police. Chief Rod Knecht of the Edmonton Police Service said law enforcement agencies need more resources from government to deal with crimes that relate to the Internet — everything from cyberbullying and online child exploitation to the use of the Internet to facilitate theft and assault.

Karen and Murray Frank have a hefty stack of documents describing the twists and turns in a nightmare feud with the Coquitlam school district. The collection includes a police apology for a botched investigation, an apology from the Insurance Corp. of B.C. for an illegal computer search of their personal information by an employee and a compensation award for their young daughter, found to be a victim of a crime by a teacher at Blakeburn elementary in Port Coquitlam.

B.C. has come up with a brilliant weapon to strike back at bullying, and Premier Alison Redford seems to like it. Last fall, after Amanda Todd killed herself following relentless cyber-bullying, B.C. put up a website that allows anonymous reporting of bullying to hundreds of schools across the province.

WINNIPEG — Alberta could soon move to implement a system to allow for anonymous online reporting of bullying in real-time and is also looking to give police enhanced powers to combat the harassment and abuse of young people, says Premier Alison Redford. With bullying a hot topic at Monday’s Western Premiers’ Conference, Redford said she would like to follow the path of British Columbia, which brought in an online reporting mechanism as part of its “Erase Bullying” initiative in the wake of the suicide of bullied teenager Amanda Todd.

Natasha Wilson remembers the day of her overdose more than she thought she would. March 24, 2011 started off like any other. The 15-year-old awoke, as usual, full of loneliness and self-hatred, feeling like an outcast in her hometown of Mission.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper added his voice to the growing condemnation over the case of a Nova Scotia teen driven to suicide following months of torment from peers after she was allegedly raped. Rehtaeh Parsons’ death has prompted renewed soul-searching across the country over the issue of bullying, just six months after the suicide of B.C. teen Amanda Todd sparked a similar public outpouring.

More stimuli means less patience. You can see it everywhere, from the parents constantly checking their smartphones to their kids plugged into that iPad during even the briefest of pauses in the day. From the moment we’re awakened by the clock alarm beeping to the time we turn off the tube, switch off the computer and turn out that light, we’re bombarded and assaulted from every angle and every, ever increasing amount of media.

Amanda Todd, the Coquitlam teen who committed suicide in October following years of Internet sexual exploitation and bullying by her peers, was among the "top trending" searches of the year, according to Google Inc.'s year-end "zeitgeist" report.

Hundreds of people in Surrey and more than 40 cities around the world lit candles Friday evening to remember bullying victim Amanda Todd and to take a quiet stand against the kind of torment that led her to take her own life.

There is the Amanda Todd that the world came to know. That is the Amanda who was harassed, stalked and bullied in an ordeal that started in cyberspace and spread to the schoolyard, and who at 15 took her own life.

When Christine Claveau saw people tormenting Amanda Todd even after bullying drove the B.C. teen to commit suicide, her instincts told her to act. Claveau, 26, contacted the employer of a man who made a derogatory posting on a memorial page dedicated to Todd, prompting the company to fire him.

The RCMP said Tuesday that information released by an international hacktivist group identifying a Vancouver-area man as Amanda Todd’s tormentor is “unfounded,” and warned against the spread of false information through social media.

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